Joanna Case Worden

In Chenago County, State of New York, on the 28th of March 1806, a wee baby boy came to gladden the home of Hyrum and Martha Barrus Keyes. They named this baby Elisha Barrus Keyes. We know nothing of his early life, in fact, the first date of consequence is the 28th of March 1838, when at the age of 32, he married Miss Joanna Case Worden at Grafton, Loraine County, Ohio. She was only 16 at the time, being 16 years his junior. She was born 17 February 1822 in Antwerp, Jefferson County, New York, the daughter of Amos Prentiss and Mary Case Worden.

Elisha and Joanna made their home in Grafton, Ohio. Their first child was born there on 10 May 1841. She was given the name of Celia Anzenette.

The Keyes were good hardworking, religious people, seemingly content with their way of life in Grafton. But all this was changed when humble Mormon missionaries, who were diligently seeking out the -honest in heart in that locality, found Elisha and Joanna Keyes, and taught them the true gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. The message sank deep into their very souls.

This was a new and unpopular religion at that time, and the Keyes had some realization that to become affiliated with it would mean much sacrifice, but they could not squelch the burning testimony they had of its truthfulness. Consequently, they were both baptized members of the Church on the l6th of July 1841.

The missionaries had encouraged them to join the main body of the Church in Illinois as soon as possible. Hence, their second child, Mary, was born January 8, 1843, in Shahane Grove County, Illinois. However, she died August 27, 1843. Next Martha was born 16 January 1845 at McQueens, Mills County, Illinois.

Mrs. Triptoe, our family researcher, found some interesting facts for this history in the old Nauvoo records, concerning baptism for the dead. But let’s go back just a little in Church history. In August 1840 the Prophet Joseph Smith made known to the Saints a revelation on the doctrine of baptism for the dead. The first baptisms were performed in the Mississippi River. The font in the basement of new temple was soon completed enough for this important ordinance to be resumed there.

Mrs. Triptoe found in the early Church files, that Joanna Keyes mother, Mary Case Worden, died in Nauvoo on August 28, 1843. She also found in the Nauvoo baptismal records, that Joanna Keyes was baptized for her father, Amos Worden, her mother, Mary Worden, Joseph Worden her grandfather, Amy Worden, her grandmother, and Hannah Worden, her sister. This was on the 28th of April 1844. In the early days of baptism for the dead it was permissible for women to be baptized for men.

We are not prepared to say just how much mob violence and persecution the Keyes family endured, along with the rest of the Saints of Nauvoo and vicinity. Their great leader, the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were brutally murdered at Carthage Jail in June of 1844 by wicked mobs. The enemies of the Church thought if they killed the Mormon leaders, the Saints would scatter, but the Lord’s work was not to be thwarted in that manner. He made Brigham Young, the President of the Twelve Apostles, equal to the task of leadership to direct the great exodus from Illinois, across the Mississippi River into Iowa in 1846.

Elisha, Joanna and their little children, also left Illinois and traveled into Iowa to the temporary camp at Bentenport. Here, under the most difficult and trying circumstances, Joanna gave birth to a little girl, Sarah Ann. (Note–Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah says she died as an infant). The group sheet submitted by Loren E. Hancock says that she died 28 December 1899, but gave no marriage.

The Keyes family then moved on to Mt. Pisgah, Iowa. From the book Essentials in Church History page 407, this place was on the Middle fork of the Grand River. Brigham Young decided it was a good place, well situated for a settlement for the homeless refugees. Several Thousand acres of land was fenced for cultivation and crude homes were made.

The Keyes family remained here for about four years, where two more children were born: Elisha Burns born 28 November 1848, and Hyrum Henry born 2 February 1851 and died 13 October 1851.

By 1852 Elisha was able to get a suitable outfit together to make the long trek across the plains to Utah. According to the book Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, the Keyes family was assigned to travel with the Eli B. Kelsey Company. Referring to Volume 12 Heart Throbs of the West, we find that 1852 was a great year for migration. Many Saints came from Europe as well as those from Eastern United States, making a total of some 4,525 Saints traveling in 21 organized companies who crossed the plains that year. Eli B. Kelsey’s Company was the 19th to leave Kanesville, Iowa. There were 100 souls in the group which arrived in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake October 16, 1852.

The Keyes family were delighted to, at last be with the main body of the church in the Valley of the Mountains, far away from their enemies. They were amazed that a city could have grown so large in a little over five years since the first saints arrived in July 1847.

According to the book Tales of a Triumphant People, we note the following: “Shortly pioneers, Brigham Young laid out the plans for Salt Lake city. Streets were made of uniform width and length. The blocks were ten acres square. At a conference held in the Bowery, February 22, 1849, Great salt Lake City was organized into nineteen wards, each to be three blocks square”.

In November 1973, Mrs. Triptoe searched these old ward records to see which Ward the Keyes family lived in. She found them Listed in the 10th ward, where they were re-baptized on October 28, 1852. According to the above mentioned book, the 10th ward boundaries were 6th East on the west, to the foothills on the east, Third south on the north, and Sixth South on the south.

It was here that Joanna gave birth to a daughter, Joanna Isabel on 31 August 1853. (Refer to Isabel history (for proof of this).

When the corner stones of the salt Lake Temple were laid on April 6, 1853, there was plenty of work for all the able bodied men to do. The temple was 40 years in construction and was dedicated on April 6, 1892.

Elisha Keyes was a carpenter by trade, so he gave freely of his time and talents while he lived in salt Lake toward the temple construction.

We are not prepared to say just when Elisha and his family took up residence in Provo, but, according to the church chronology by Jensen-page 37, we learn that Provo was settled in March 1849 by John S. Higbee and some 30 others.

Joanna adjusted well to this pioneer community. Elisha worked at his trade and did other jobs to make a living for his family. He was active in the church and his diligence was rewarded by being ordained a High Priest.

Then on the 27th of September, 1855, the life of Elisha Barrus Keyes came to an abrupt close, in Provo.

True, age 49 was not old in years for a man such as Elisha to be called “Home”, but his life time had been one of varied experiences, and accomplishments. His children who grew to adulthood married and had families that were living monuments to his fine character. The greatest heritage they received from their father and grandfather was the fact that he had the courage to accept Mormonism and to stay steadfast and true to the church and its teachings through all the persecutions in Illinois and the privations of making a home in this new territory of Utah.

Being left a widow at the age of 33, Joanna Keyes, with her children ranging in ages from 15 to 2 years of age, took on the added responsibility so suddenly thrust upon her, with faith and courage.

However, she did not, stay a widow for long. Polygamy was being extensively practiced in these days and when a church stalwart, George Bentley Teeples asked her to be his plural wife, she accepted. This marriage took place on February 20, 1856.

Because our Joanna lived 28 years of her life as the wife of George B. Teeples, it would be fitting to include in her history the fact that he was born 17 March 1803 in Rochester, New York. He married Hulda Colby and crossed the plains in 1848. They eventually became the parents of 10 children.

We have no way of knowing how Hulda Teeples, 44, reacted to sharing her 53 year old husband with a young widow of. 34. It would be imagined that there would have to be plenty of unselfish adjustment for all concerned to live in such a set-up.

Records show that Joanna Teeples gave birth to her first child, Rhoda Elvira, on the 23 September 1857, in Fort Supply, which was first in Utah and later in Wyoming.

Your writer made a study about Fort Supply in the Church Chronology, also Volume 9 Our Pioneer Heritage, and the histories of John and Charles Pulsipher, and found the following briefly told.

In 1853, Orson Hyde was called by the Church Authorities to take a number of families and locate a settlement on the Green River which was then in Green River County, Utah, later known as Unita County Wyoming, and make a Fort. The Fort was on Willow Creek, 12 miles south of Fort Bridger and called “Fort Supply”. The purpose was to raise a grain in that high altitude, which could be turned into flour for the benefit of the incoming Latter-day Saints. More families were called at different times to take their turns in living in this cold and hostile Indian country.

A call was made from Utah County in 1856 for families to go to Fort Supply. This probably was when George Teeples took his families to this place. Hulda Teeples gave birth to a baby there in October 1856.

Everything looked promising for a community until Johnstons’ Army approached. The Church leaders were concerned and decided the soldiers would not, reap any of the benefits of their hard labors, so the people were hastily evacuated and the Fort burned.

The Teeples families were among those who went to Ogden, a fast growing community in Weber County.

It was in Ogden that our Joanna gave birth to Jacob Amos Teeples on February 5, 1860, then twin girls–Antoinette and Marietta were born September 27, 1862. Joanna knew deep sorrow when little Antoinette died on the 8th of March 1863, and Marietta died May 2, 1866.

We don’t know why or when that the Teeples families left Ogden and journeyed south to Parowan, Iron County. This was an old pioneer community, having been first settled in 1851.

Joanna soon got acquainted with the good sisters of the town who gave her a warm welcome in their midst.

George Teeples must have been sort of a rover. We find them next living in Cedar Springs, which was later named Holden. It is some miles north of Fillmore, the County Seat, and the first State Capital, in Millard County.

We know nothing of Joanna’s life in Holden. However, it was here that she was left a widow for the second time. George Bentley Teeples died September 18, 1884 (The first wife, Hulda had died June 10, 1882). He was 81 at the time of his death.

It should be interesting to the reader to know a little about each one of Joanna’s children.

When Celia Anzinette was 15 ½ years old, she married Alma Taylor at Fort Supply, on December 3, 1856. They settled in Ogden in 1857, and pioneered Franklin, Idaho and Vernal in Uintah County Utah.

Celia was the mother of 13 children. Her husband died August 10, 1910 at Vernal from injuries received in a runway. She took care of her mother in her old age. Celia died in Vernal September 9, 1913.

In 1864, Martha Keyes married her brother-in-law, Alma Taylor, as his plural wife. She was the mother of four children and died February 21, I815, perhaps in Vernal.

Elisha Burnes Keyes married Lillus Louisa Barney in 1871. They made their home in different settlements in Southern Utah, first in Pine Valley, then to Parowan, back to Pine Valley, then to Vermillion and Anabella in Sevier County. He lived in Anabella for 23 years and died there on April 10, 1911 age 62. He and his wife had a family of 10 children.

Joanna Isabell married Thomas Yardley in Parowan on January 30, 1871, when she was living there with her family. Joanna lived in Parowan all her married life and died February 19, 1892 at the age of 38. She was the mother of 11 children.

Your writer was unable to secure a family group sheet of Rhoda Elvira Teeples and Newell Green. She married him November 12, 1871 and she died on January 8, 1889. We did get a sheet of him and his second wife whom he married in 1881. He died August 9, 1931 in Montpelier, Idaho. Rhoda Teeples could have been divorced from him and married someone we don’t have record of.

Jacob Amos Teeples married Sarah Elizabeth Bennett in Garden City, Cache County, Utah, September 24, 1882. About 1884 they moved from Holden to Menan, Idaho. They had a family of nine children. His wife Sarah died in 1906 and in 1907 he married Elsie Whitmill. He died November 11, 1937 in South Gate, California.

Being left alone, great grandmother Joanna appreciated her oldest daughter Celia taking her into her comfortable home in Vernal. She received tender loving care the rest of her days. She passed peacefully away on May 5, 1902 at the ripe old age of 80 years. She died in Vernal in the community of Ashley, and was buried in that community in the Rock Point Cemetery.

Obituary

Vernal Express Saturday, May 12, 1900
JOANNA CASE WORDEN KEYES TEEPLS

Last Monday morning all that was mortal of Mrs. Joanna C. Teeples was laid peacefully to rest in the Ashley Cemetery. The funeral services were held in the Ashley School house and a large number of friends of the ages and respected pioneer were present to pay their respects to the departed. Elders Waren Johnson and Joseph H. Black were the speakers and offered words of consolation and comfort.
Mrs. Teeples whose maiden name was Joanna C. Worden, was born in New York, February 17th, 1821. The name of her husband was Elisha B. Keyes. They joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in early days and shared the troubles of Nauvoo. Mr. Keyes died while crossing the plains leaving her to care for a family of small children. She drove her team of oxen to Salt Lake valley. She afterwards married Wm. Teeples and lived at Paragonah, Iron County, until the death of her second husband a few years ago, after which she moved to Vernal and lived with her daughter Mrs. Alma Taylor.
Her death occurred Saturday, May 5th. Her daughter, Mrs. Taylor has been suffering from a severe illness and the death of her mother was a severe blow to her.